Estonian experts slash municipalities

Jul 07, 2008
Monika Hanley in cooperation with BNS

Areas such as these are soon to come under administratieve reform. Photo: Jennifer Boyer

TALLINN- Under the conditions, it is necessary to cut the number of local governments, director of the Estonian Institute of Economic Research Marje Josing said.

She said that administratively speaking, Estonia was suffering from a economic slowdown and that shortage of good specialists was the main problem for the country's municipalities.

"We have 1.3 million people living here, in Paris including suburbs there are eight million. We're like one distrist of Paris, but a district in Paris doesn't think that each street should have a local government of its own," Josing was quoted as saying by the national broadcasting company ERR.

It is the shortage of sharp wit and good specialists that poses the biggest problem for municipalities in Estonia, she said.

"Why is it that in some municipalities everything develops and progresses, whereas in others it doesn't? Often it is due to the leadership of the municipality, their inability to find contacts and investors, write projects," Josing added.

When a municipality of 700 residents is not able to secure jobs, it isn't a solution that you have an official sitting there holding on to his or her job, Josing argued.

Estonia made a mistake when it restored 240 municipalities after regaining independence, said Josing.

Latvia and Finland on the other hand cut the number of their municipalities as a result of administrative reforms. A rural municipality should have natural borders and a size enabling it to hire professional specialists, she added.

Josing also stressed that the purpose of cutting the number of municipalities must not be saving but development.

The administrative reform in Estonia started in 1997 with a proposal from three ministers to cut the number of county governments from 15 to four and reduce the number of municipalities by at least two-thirds by local elections of 1999.

There were 227 municipalities, or 194 rural municipalities and 33 towns, in Estonia this spring, 14 fewer than before the last local elections.

According to Eurostat figures from 2001, the average number of residents living in the territory of a municipality in Estonia is 5,500, compared with the EU average of 5,100.

MORE NEWS